Talk:Fact checker

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[edit] Should there be an article on Circular Reporting?

One thing fact checkers do is prevent circular reporting - where one source reports something, this is used to write a story at a second source, and the first source uses the second story to back up it's initial claim.

I.E.: Newspaper A writes that taxes will fall, making up the story from thin air, or before it has been confirmed by anyone. Paper B sees the story and also reports that taxes will fall, without stating where they got the story from. Paper A sees paper B's story, and thinks it is independent verification of their initial story. As a result, what was baseless conjecture becomes presented as backed-up fact.

One example is during the Yom Kippur War. Before fighting broke out, the Americans (CIA) reduced their alert level/belief that war was going to break out. This caused the Israeli intelligence services to reduce their estimation of the threat level to their country, as they thought that the US knew better, and that they didn't think a war was going to happen. UNFORTUNATELY, the Israelis were unaware that the US only reduced their alert levels because they thought the Israelis didn't seem worried that a war was going to happen (and the American's thought the Israelis would know better, since they were closer to the enemy and had more to lose). The result was that both sides lowered their alert levels. --85.92.185.85 17:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)